I just recently purchased a USB to Go dongle for the SGS3 (the adapter allowing you to use the SGS3 in usb host mode, to connect things like flash drives, mice, hubs, etc). Everything seems to be working quite well, but I do have a question maybe someone can answer.
I was hoping that, if using something like a powered USB hub, that I'd be able to plug that into the USB to Go connector, and that my SGS3 would charge through the hub. Maybe this was a foolish hope, but I'd hoped nonetheless because it seems that there's going to be quite a bit of battery power drained by trying to power devices like this. I had hoped to basically set up a sort of docking station where I could connect the phone to the USB to Go adapter, plug that into a powered hub to have it charge, connect a flash drive, mouse, and keyboard to the hub, and then use HDMI out to a TV.
It seems even with a powered USB hub I'm stuck not charging so this setup obviously doesn't last long, which leads me to wonder why it's set up like this.
I'm sure I'm missing something or not thinking it through or maybe it's just not possible. But any insight into this, or is it just not possible to charge while using the phone as a host?
Related
http://support.google.com/ics/nexus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2386439&topic=2375623&ctx=topic
According to the official Google Help Page, it should support USB Host. However searching online have returned a lot of out-dated threads about how the USB chip works when it was still running Gingerbread.
I have purchased a USB adapter, tried to connect any USB device to my Nexus S, and nothing happens. The USB port will not be powered. However quoting Google's official help text :
You may need an adapter to connect the keyboard or other device to your phone's USB port. To connect more than one USB device at a time, use a powered USB hub to reduce the drain on your phone’s battery.
This implies that connecting devices to your Nexus S will drain your battery?
I am very confused. I have no powered USB hubs so I cannot try to see if the USB host function is purely limited by the lack of power or the USB chip.
I am sure I am not the only person who would love this to work. Is there anyone who knows what does it take to get USB Host to work on Nexus S upgraded to ICS? (Despite Google's help site indicating that it should just works out of the box)
Thanks a lot.
So, I spent some money and bought a powered USB hub.
No it didn't work.
I think the reason is that the power is not being transferred UPSTREAM. For example, I have connected the USB hub to my Nexus S, and a Logitech wireless mouse receiver to the powered USB hub.
Although I am sure that the Logitech wireless mouse receiver has power (from the USB hub), the Nexus S does not recognize the existence of the USB hub, since the power is not transmitted from the USB hub back INTO the Nexus S.
Feeling disappointed, I repacked everything nicely and exchanged my purchase for a slightly more useful 16GB SD Card.
Does anyone has any information to how is this supposed to work?
Or should we assume Google has made a stupid typo in their help articles, and that the Nexus S will not actually work in USB Host Mode ??
anyone please?
I too am looking for answers. Anyone?
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
So, I purchases a USB OTG cable in an attempt to try and expand the functionality of Webtop while using Nebtop. I've been unable to get any response from the phone when I plug in this cable. I've tried my wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard that worked off the bat with my TF101 using the Unifying remote they came with as well as an external TB drive.
Has anyone else had any experience with this? It seems logical that the phone supports host mode since the actual dock has 3 full sized USB ports.
All the information pertaining to this sort of thing I've come up with seems extremely phone specific but if there's a simple solution I'm missing thanks all the more.
ri4naire said:
So, I purchases a USB OTG cable in an attempt to try and expand the functionality of Webtop while using Nebtop. I've been unable to get any response from the phone when I plug in this cable. I've tried my wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard that worked off the bat with my TF101 using the Unifying remote they came with as well as an external TB drive.
Has anyone else had any experience with this? It seems logical that the phone supports host mode since the actual dock has 3 full sized USB ports.
All the information pertaining to this sort of thing I've come up with seems extremely phone specific but if there's a simple solution I'm missing thanks all the more.
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Click to collapse
The problem actually lies in the usb port of the phone itself. The dock was designed for this purpose, and the dock app handles most that for you, the one thing that the dock is able to do that a straight USB cable can't do, is provide enough "bus" power to use a mouse or even a USB stick directly from the phone. If you want to use a Mouse you will need to get a dock. I got mine directly from wireless.att.com, and it was only $49.00 back in Nov. when I got it. It works VERY well with webtop.
P.S. Motorola is very famous for doing things like this to force you into a dock, or to lock out certain features that everyone really wants to use.
I made my own dock by using a powered usb hub I had sitting around (it was actually the one that came with Rock Band for my Xbox 360). I did have to modify it slightly so that the 1 pin was powered from the 5V (a simple shunt from the 5V inner pin of the power supply solder joint to the solder joint of the 1 pin worked fine--although it might be wise to insert an inline fuse since it also charges your phone while plugged in).
Otherwise, the only other thing needed is coming in the form of your otg adapter that should short the 5 pin (common) with your 4 pin (ID). I did this by cracking open an extra micro usb cable and soldering a wire between the two.
So, my setup was like this:
1. Modified usb cable to short the 4 & 5 pins to let the phone know to go into host
2. Use a female A-female A usb coupler to join the usb cable to the powered hub (I got mine here from Monoprice
3. Get 5V to the 1 pin in the usb hub to provide power to your phone and for whatever is plugged into the hub.
With this, I was easily able to run a usb mouse and a wireless keyboard that had a usb dongle. Paired with a micro hdmi cable to hdmi-dvi adapter, I am able to use my office monitor and the webtop linux. I honestly haven't really used it much yet (if I found it really useful, I probably would have just paid for the dock).
The obvious easy way is to just get the dock. However, I really like being able to do this on my own and since I had this stuff already laying around. Also, the cheap prices from monoprice (I actually made $4 off of the purchase from a PayPal bill-me-later promotion).
So, you should be able to get it to work if you get power to the bus on your usb (but again, it might be safe to pass an appropriate fast-acting fuse, ferrite core, or something to protect from surges). I haven't had issue yet, but I also don't use it often...yet .
It sounds like a bit of yes and a bit of no. The OTG cable I got is microUSB to female full USB, am I going to need to modify this cable as you've described by crossing the 4th and 5th pins?
I'm thinking about ordering this "7 Port USB Squid Hub" since it has the 5v power adapter, do you think it might work?
Just one more question and thanks for all the help but should I not see any response from the phone when I plug in the cable? I read through some of the reviews for cheap cables on Amazon and apparently sometimes they're just useless.
ri4naire said:
It sounds like a bit of yes and a bit of no. The OTG cable I got is microUSB to female full USB, am I going to need to modify this cable as you've described by crossing the 4th and 5th pins?
I'm thinking about ordering this "7 Port USB Squid Hub" since it has the 5v power adapter, do you think it might work?
Just one more question and thanks for all the help but should I not see any response from the phone when I plug in the cable? I read through some of the reviews for cheap cables on Amazon and apparently sometimes they're just useless.
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Click to collapse
The OTG cable have should work. The OTG cable, to my knowledge, should already have pins 4 & 5 shorted together. I'm not completely certain, but if it's designed as an OTG, it would probably already have that done. If you have an ohmmeter/multimeter, you could try to check (it's hard to isolate the small pins, but you can try). If it's already going to the USB female (type A), you will then be able to directly attach your hub when you get it (without the need of the coupler I had to get).
When I used mine, there was no notification that said "Hey, I'm in USB Host Mode!". However, if you successfully have a mouse attached, you'll see a mouse cursor arrow on your screen.
Have fun with it and if you can't get it to work, let me know and I'll try to explain with even more detail (perhaps with some pretty pictures) of what I did. I more or less went off of what I could glean from reading what others did.
It works great! Also, it is weird to see the mouse on this little a screen, it seems oversized.
I just plugged everything in and it worked off the bat. I'm using just two items from Amazon I got for under 12 bucks (plus, of course, the keyboard and mouse I already had for my computer). I don' think I can post links to the forums yet but the ASINs for the items if people want to do this on the super cheap are as follows:
B0043TBCDS 7 Port USB Squid Hub, a whopping $5.19
B005N55WHI Micro-B USB OTG Cable... $5.99
I chose these because of their Prime eligibility and also for their form factor so as not to cover the HDMI port, I bet it's not impossible to get these even cheaper.
While this isn't technically a replacement for the dock since I had to root the device and I have to press "Load" in Nebtop if I want to go to Webtop I'm extremely pleased with the results.
I also love that all the soft keys are available. The ones I've discovered are that right button on the mouse as well as Esc are Back, the Home key is Home, clicking the wheel as well as Ctrl, Cmd, Alt and a whole slew of others bring up the Menu, but all I can find is F5 for Search.
On another note, while the phone does charge when hooked up, a practical boon, the screen still times out despite having the "Stay awake" feature checked. This is annonying when the phone is on it's side accross the room and I have to squint to see the cursor and swipe it unlocked sideways as well as click back into Mirror Display.
I've heard that the External USB Adapter from ASUS is a notoriously difficult beast to locate. It's marketed to plug into a bare tablet and provide a Host USB connector. But, would it also work in the charging port of the keyboard dock giving a second Host USB port? (Yes, I know a hub would do this. But If one wants this device to connect USB storage to a bare tablet, would it also do double duty and work with the dock?)
It certainly sounds possible. Mostly because I think the internals of the keyboard dock are a hub already basically.
One usb going to the card reader, one going to the usb port, one to the keyboard function, and another as a passthrough to the proprietary data port.
So by using the usb adapter you are just converting the otherwise unused data port into another usb port.
since there both 40 pin connecters i imagine that would work
m3n991 said:
since there both 40 pin connecters i imagine that would work
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Click to collapse
That is also my assumption, but we all know what assuming does. All depends if all the signals are passed through, and if there are any lag or transmission line issues.
Has anyone tried this to verify if it does or does not work?
I would like to know if this exists, as if it doesn't I was thinking about making it. As the title may be confusing to understand, maybe describing what I'm trying to do will be easier to explain.
I going to create a dock in a family mini van for a tablet. This tablet will have limited storage space, but has usb otg capabilities. Thus hooking up a flash drive with movies on it would be the goal.
Now running a female to male cable would be fairly easy, however I want to be able to have the tablet charge and still use the usb port to access the usb cable. Thus I need a cable that may be spliced cable with three ends. Where two ends are for usb transfer and another to supply power to the devices. Or if there is another solution, I am up for it.
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda app-developers app
I have seen Y cables for such a purpose.
If you want to do charge/power and USB host at the same time
you will need the plug into the Android to be an OTG plug with a grounded ID pin.
The other end will go to the flash drive.
If you apply 5V to the Vbus/Gnd your device has the possibility to use this power.
Of course this is an odd situation and it may ignore the 5V and only use its own battery.
Experimenting will show you if this will work without a driver hack.
Ok...so I have ordered 3 different adapters for my samsung galaxy note 10.1, ive tried it when it was rooted and on stock, nothing works, basically i get the usb adapter, plug it in, and the ps3 controller works for like 2 hours...then doesn't work on any of the adapters, it stops reading the ps3 controller and says its a high power device and that's it, , it think it stopped after the controller conected to the ps3 again? can someone please tell me what to do? ! im just fed up!
I use a USB OTG cable and find it only works with devices that don't require power from the USB to work. Maybe a ps3 controller needs an external power supply.
Sparksltd said:
I use a USB OTG cable and find it only works with devices that don't require power from the USB to work. Maybe a ps3 controller needs an external power supply.
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Click to collapse
maybe, but it's so frustrating because i saw youtube tutorials and tutorials on here about what to do even with xbox controllers, im just having no luck with it at all, doesn't even allow me to do it wirelessly, but usb memory sticks work fine just the controllers...
I'm not sure if this would work but since you have got 3 cables experimenting with one wouldn't be a great loss...
Usb cables have 4 connections. 2 are data 1 is +5v and one ground -
If you cut about half way into one of your USB OTG cables and found the +5v and ground - cables and cut them so your tablet can't see a load then with another USB cable (male plug side only) connected the +5v and Ground - only to the female side of your USB OTG only so it could power the ps3 controller.
Then you would plug the extra USB plug into another USB socket like a PC or laptop or similar to power the ps3 controller.
Just an idea.
Edit: Or just find the red cable in one of your USB OTG cables and cut it. You will have to charge the usb controller another way though.
Your PS3 controller is attempting to charge its battery from the USB port/OTG connector. The port can only supply amperage for so long before protection circuitry kicks in and keeps itself from melting down. Atleast that's the way I would do it if I were an electrical engineer
Yes even data cards do not work
I find I can use memory sticks OK but anything that draws a lot of current gets the (in)famous "high power USB device" notification...
It's a pain in the bum as I would like my $600 Note to use the 1Tb NTFS drive my $400 A501 uses with no problem whatsoever...
Today there are whole host of usb powered devices some are good and some are cheap may be the concept Samsung had was to make sure some device does not pull power more then the tablet can provide and in turn does not overcook some of the components so that have built in a failsafe may be because the single port does multiple functions this has been provisioned
Yeah but when I used a powered HDD it fried not only my Note10.1 but also the portable HDD too... Not happy...
I think it killed the battery to be honest as it got REALLY hot and the battery dropped from almost fully charged to depleted in about 15 minutes... Also killed the digitiser but the pen still worked. Turned off and left overnight and tab was completely dead next morning....
Very expensive paper weight...:crying:
So I had to go out and get another one, this time 32gb 3g instead of 16gb (eating rice and tuna for the next month or 2)...
Won't be connecting another drive any time soon...
thanks